A Review for the Millennial Generation who Seek Financial Freedom:

Mr. Money Mustache and White Coat Investor

Have you ever thought of managing your own money without an expensive financial adviser? Or just needed somebody you can trust not to rip you off with commissions, and high advisory fees? If you have followed our blog here, that’s precisely what Dan and I write about. But, Dan and I are two old white guys who also have a successful lifelong story. But many young people want it now, not later (us older folks forgot how we thought when we were young!). And 20-30 something age young people want to relate to their generational peers.

This post is a review of not just two individuals who also have a blog, but two successful 30-something young men, their spouses and family, and have ten of thousands of blog followers and manage their own investments.

Introducing Mr. Money Mustache and the White Coat Investor. While they pursue wildly different lifestyles, they are extraordinarily alike in their goal of achieving a rich and rewarding life for themselves.

Both are a brilliant young men and gifted writers who discuss their lives with eloquence, courageousness and genuineness. I have subscribed to both emergdoc’s and MMM blogs and you should too. I met emergdoc at a Vanguard financial Conference (real name, Jim Dahle, MD, he is really an emergency medical doctor practicing in Utah) .

Both have met their life missions: inspiring readers to understand and improve their relationship with money, and as a direct result lives will be improved and happily stress free. Both “have it all:” fame and contentment, but most importantly, they have something valuable and long lasting to give to us. Both recommend the indexing strategy with the Vanguard.

Emergdoc and MMM fulfill a fundamental fantasy that many of us older folks may have forgotten when we were (are) in our 20s and 30s, to be rich, well-regarded, respected, enjoy super family relationships to come home to and a high paying, high-status position which we also love. Or to have enough wealth or wherewithal to say adios to the boss and live in freedom.

“Emergdoc” (White Coat Investor)

Emerdoc writes intensely about the quantitative parts of personal finance. He great service primarily focuses on the ultra wealthy, highly paid professionals (MDs, of course, but also attorneys, business people, CPAs, some higher education academics, and engineers) who appreciate his quantitative analyses with his charts and numbers. But most importantly, these influential professionals also deserve a fair shake with ethical financial advice to stay the heck away from the big banks, insurance companies and brokerage firms. His blog post on keeping your investments away from insurance companies is one of my favorites because it speaks to my professional who get hammered 24/7 by expensive insurance company 403(b) Tax-sheltered Annuity plans: http://whitecoatinvestor.com/dont-mix-i … investing/

Writing and self-publishing a personal finance book and blog is difficult (White Coat Investor book on Amazon). But with thousands of followers, both are doing this right. Emergdoc said on his blog- he received 900 emails last month! That’s about 30 emails a day! And he has a full-time job, a wife, 4 children with a newborn! Holy Cow! The guy must never sleep to keep that up, even with a full time stay at home wife! He has more financial “clients” and more positive book reviews that the vast majority of financial professionals, put together. His book on Amazon earned an astronomical 336 reviewers with a 4.8/5 star rating! 97% of the reviewers gave him a 4 or 5 stars. Reviewers wrote something to the effect that his 160 page book is a financial genius for our medical profession. And why not? He is also a Boglehead, follower of John Bogle’s investing principles.

Mr. Money Mustache

MMM is an anomaly who along with his wife retired from the computer software business at age 30. They have a young son. His family walks the talk with the astonishing wit and wisdom of an individual many times his age, perhaps many lifetimes. With kindness and sensitivity he says that stressful lifestyles with all of those expensive toys to maintain and pay dearly for, don’t make us happy 24/7. He claims that his family lives on $25,000 per year. Most people say they want to be different–MMM lives it 110%, and his courage to be genuinely different must be respected.

What’s so interesting is that there is nothing new about MMM messages, most of the major religions and philosophers have said the same thing for centuries. Yet, MMM takes on, once again, the most boring aspects of our consciousness, frugal living. It’s not what he writes, but how he writes it. Few people want to hear about frugal living as it is antithetical to our way of life. Yet, MMM does it will ease and simplicity–hundreds of thousands of people are listening and reading his lengthy blog posts. Can you believe that? Who would reject a TV show about their life? MMM did. He tried it, but it disrupted his comfortable retirement life. I wonder how many book publishers are just salivating about all of those followers. MMM really and truly walks to a different tune, and if he did go down the celebrity route, his unique message would be slowly shift back to the unhealthy life that he wisely rejected.

His tweets are also pure genius. Here is one out of hundreds he tweets: “Luxury is best appreciated as a strong and interesting contrast to, rather than the fabric of, your daily life.”-MMM. There are more: https://twitter.com/mrmoneymustache

MMM readers respond to his qualitative analyses as a lyricist, poet, philosopher and essayist about the dryness of everyday chores we do, such as changing a light bulb or dusting. This post about human adaptive skills about living-on-less is so well thought out, it could be published in a professional journal, IMO (http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/ … o-a-sukka/). Once again in my profession, teachers are naturally frugal, but with a slight change of attitude, we can also build wealth far greater than what we imagined and live in financial freedom as a result.

We do our chores unconsciously. Not MMM! He has the incredible tenacity for mindfulness that would teach many of us busy folks a thing or two about mundane activities (Voltaire wrote, “Common sense is not so common”). With an audience of hundreds of thousands of followers on his blog means he resonates with many people who desire equanimity in their lives. MMM helps us improve our attitude about not only money but addresses needless stress about material things we do not need. Feeling better and living happier with less are still powerful antidotes to these challenging times when fear is monetized everywhere we go through our powerful media.

Americans should are lucky to have these fine young men giving of themselves through their enormous energy and talent to thoroughly examine not only our financial quantitative pursuits, but to enhance our collective and qualitative perspectives as the whole life experience (Quantitative vs. Qualitative reasoning defined).

About

Steve Schullo is a retired Los Angeles Unified School District elementary teacher turned 403(b) reform advocate and author of two books. Steve is NOT a licensed finan­cial or invest­ment advi­sor, and the infor­ma­tion and expe­riences shared as a do-it-yourself investor con­tained herein is for infor­ma­tional pur­poses only and does not con­sti­tute finan­cial advice.

Through­out my blog, I share my expe­ri­ences with finances as an ordi­nary con­sumer, not as a pro­fes­sion­al. Do not start, change or mod­ify your port­fo­lio based on the infor­ma­tion in this blog alone. Any ideas, invest­ment strate­gies, links to fee-only pro­fes­sional advis­ers and par­tic­u­lar invest­ment com­pa­nies dis­cussed in any arti­cle or in my blog are a reflec­tion of my expe­ri­ences and should not be con­strued as a rec­om­men­da­tion. Always con­sult with a tax or finan­cial professional.